The Summerland Advocate-Messenger - Reliable, Trustworthy Reporting, Capturing The Heartbeat Of Our Community

There will never be another Rita. My first memories of the Orchard elementary teacher are from 2008, when I filled in during maternity leave for Kortney Sayers. Rita Shabram was one of the first...

April is National Poetry Month, a time to celebrate the creative written word form, its expressive ebb and flow pulling you in. Reading poetry is great. Watching someone bring those words to life,...

The 11-year-old version of LuAnn was enthralled with studying the globe in our sixth-grade classroom. Pastel blue denoted water on the curved, glossy sphere. Continents lifted from the surface,...

I saw a quote recently and it’s been on my mind since then: “The nice part about being a pessimist is that you are constantly being either proven right or pleasantly surprised.” I like surpr...

Either it’s irony or a divine sign that SPS English instructor Katie Schneider shared a blog post on social media last week about the teacher shortage. I’ve been gathering data on the topic for nearly...

Coming to a TV or social media channel soon: “How To Survive Cooking With Your Spouse.” You no doubt think I’m joking, but Scott and I have talked about it for years. It might not be like the Food...

Typically, at the end of the legal notices that run in the paper, I add the phrase, "The public has the right to know." You do. The premise is etched into our statehouse's north wall, "The Salvation...

What a great time to be a Bobcat! Our students are shining in all activities. Backtrack to November when the volleyball team qualified for state competition and the football team played in two rounds...

Thoughts that keep a news publisher awake at night: Would Benjamin Franklin cringe at the tardiness of mail delivery? Franklin, publisher of “The Pennsylvania Gazette,” first ran Philadelphia’s post...

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Find you tribe and appreciate them. I (and even Scott) appreciate everything our freelance photographers do for our publication. Whether they’re takin...

One of my favorite movie lines I've been known utter to my children and grandkids originates from the movie "A League of Their Own," when Tom Hanks' character, Jimmy Dugan, tells a woman's league...

To quote Benjamin Franklin, “Our new Constitution is now established, and has an appearance that promises permanency; but in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.” I a...

Move aside, Carmela Soprano. I’m in my mob wife era. Cheetah print? You name it. I’ve got it. Shirts, skirts, dresses, jeans, sweaters, boots. You could say cheetah is one of my favorite colors. Ple...

John Lajba has grown accustomed to having Lady Liberty loom over him while he works in his downtown Omaha studio. Still, the sculptor would rather see the weathered 9-foot copper statue depart his...

Several items I cherish most in life are found in a recipe box atop the refrigerator. The other, tucked away in my office in the file cabinet. The items have two common threads. They are handwritten...

To borrow from the Rolling Stones, “You can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometime, you’ll find, you get what you need.” This has been one of my favorite songs since the 1970s. Yes, th...

Were you part of the mad rush at Target stores, trampling others or being pushed out of the way, to snag one of the hottest items in the retail world? Were you part of the Stanley stampede, where the...

What does it mean to be authentic? Credible. Trustworthy. Real. Genuine. These synonyms for the 2023 word of the year, as selected by the folks at Merriam-Webster, make an important statement about th...

The final minutes of Christmas 2023 are counting down. It's nearly midnight, the house is quiet except for the steady hum from the corn stove and an occasional cough from Scott, who is tucked in bed,...

Have you started Christmas shopping or are you one of those people who have completed the task and have everything wrapped? I belong to the first group. While I blame my tardiness on my...

An email landed in my inbox and caught my attention. I don’t watch a lot of television, unless the Weather Channel and sporting events count. And, if by some chance I watch a network show, I’m con...

Harper Lee’s “To Kill A Mockingbird” is one of my favorite novels. Perhaps it’s because of the lyrical motion of the words she employs in telling the story of Jem and Scout and their father Atticus...

Isn’t it amazing how a game changes over the years? During the late 1960s, Mom coached volleyball in Clay Center. I remember sitting on the stage in what later became known as the “old gym,” watch...

“Clothes make a statement. Costumes tell a story.” I read this quote, by author Mason Cooley, recently and it made me think about Halloween traditions and costumes from my childhood and ones my kid...